Tertiary assistance grant ‘pathetic’

Press, 21 February 1987, Page 8

Tertiary assistance grant ‘pathetic’

, Wellington reporter • The Minister of Trade and Industry, Mr Caygill, has described the present tertiary assistance grant as a pathetic encouragement for students.

Mr Caygill, speaking at the University of Canterbury yesterday, said he was uneasy at the demise of open entry into tertiary institutions.

“Year by year it has grieved: me to see the increasing spread of restrictions on entry into university subjects.”

He said that he could understand some of the reasons for limitations, such as the pressure on resources and the desire to guarantee the quality of graduate results. He also suspected, however, “that financial pressures have also limited the numbers attending university.

“The grand design begun with the standard tertiary bursary has wilted over the years until now the current tertiary assitance grant is a pathetic encouragement to tertiary study," Mr Caygill said. All such restriction

“grated” because they conflicted with the concept of university education as a search for learning, he said. Mr Caygill said that less than half or New Zealland’s 17-year-olds were in full-time or part-time eduation, copared to almost 60 per cent in Australia, 84 per cent in Japan, and 87 per cent in the United States. In addition, almost half of New Zealand’s university students had professional or managerial parents yet these groups made up only. 14 per cent of the workforce, he said. These figures were of concern in New Zealand,

especially the fact that 28 per cent of students left secondary school without any technical or academic qualification. < Mr Caygill qualified his remarks by saying that it was perhaps time that his prejudice in favour of open entry and ad eundem admission was examined.

He also suggested, however, “that in future it will not be enough for the universities simply to accept those who can afford to come and whom the university can afford to teach.” The Government would soon launch its own review of tertiary education